Learn by Playing a Game

Have you heard of the DB2 Detective Game? I was part of a small team that created this game a few years ago with the objective of teaching people how to query a DB2 database. Our original audience was a SHAD Valley group of high achieving high school students (http://www.shad.ca/). One of the people on our team was a former SHAD grad who was on a coop term at IBM. Teaching the students was an amazing experience. They like the competitiveness of playing a game, but it was astonishing how quickly they picked up the skill of writing queries to get important information from the database.

The game has gone through many iterations of improvements and is now called the DB2 business game and is available on developerWorks for all to "play". Give it a try....

If you're a beginner with IBM® DB2® and SQL, you may wonder how the technical skills you're learning are used in the "real world." Here is a chance for you to put your DB2 SQL skills into play in this interactive game! Jump into a "run your own business" scenario, where your company's future depends on a key report needed to secure funds for a critical upgrade. Use your relational database skills to build this report.

Objectives

Put your DB2 SQL skills into play using a "real world" business scenario.